What direction now for US space exploration?

US CONGRESSMAN Adam Schiff was touring Pakistan in May when NASA's Phoenix spacecraft touched down on Mars. He was struck by the glowing accounts of NASA's triumph that suddenly dominated the Pakistani newspapers. "In a country where there are such deep suspicions about what the US does, there was at least one area where the reaction was uniformly positive," says Schiff, whose district in California includes NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built Phoenix. "And it's one area where the US shows that it is capable of doing great things."

The story illustrates a key leadership test awaiting the next US president. In a time of economic crisis, the space programme presents an easy target for cutbacks. Yet for political and strategic reasons it is an area in which the US seeks to lead the world. With China and other countries leaping forward in space technology, this task will only become ...

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